Welcome back to RomanticFridayWriters! What's new?

Hi all!

Welcome to one new member Emma and several new followers during this past month!

It's great to be back. I feel pretty high after the A - Z Challenge. I loved learning more about the bloggers I interviewed and loved sharing their pictures and stories on my blog for my theme, BLOGGERS WERE CHILDREN TOO! I used as many RFW members as the letters would allow, but at some time on this blog I'd like to learn more about each of you. And I also enjoyed posting flash fiction here at RFW for most of the month. Thanks to Rek and Raelene for helping me out there!

I hope you'll tell us about how you went if you participated in the A-Z Challenge.

Now I'm ready to get back to writing our unique RFW prompts. I hope you are too. But first, a few things to note:

Donna Hole takes on full co-host responsibilities from now on. Please take a few moments to read her Donna Page. You'll see she's going to be a great asset to our group and has been already.

During the last month, Donna and I have rejigged a few things. You know the saying: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'? Well none of the concepts at RFW were 'broke', some just needed a bit of refreshing. The following are the main changes:

• Donna Hole takes on the full role of co-host, assisting me with every aspect of RFW. You are welcome to email Donna and/or myself if you have any suggestions, issues etc.
• We are actively seeking Guest Posts on the craft of writing/publishing. Check out the Guest Post Page. Do let us know if you'd like to post for us. Contributing members will be given preference.
• Submission Guidelines have changed slightly. Check out the Submissions Page.
• Featured Writer and Runner Up won't be judged each challenge. We know you like to have your say, so a poll will be available each challenge for the People's Choice Award. Note the new badge in sidebar.
• Our challenges will challenge you to greater heights - we envision several upcoming prompts where all entries will be either poetry or prose. These are the challenges where we will judge for FW and RU.

After you've browsed around those pages, take a few more minutes to check out the rest of the blog - you'll notice some updates, additions and changes. All the Pages have been updated. Take a few minutes to click on and get to know your fellow members.  You might be surprised by who lurks here...

FIRST CHALLENGE BEGINS RIGHT AWAY!

I hope you've had your thinking caps on for our first challenge, the Response to Image that's been hovering there in the left sidebar for some time now. There are further guidelines to this challenge so do pay a visit to the Challenges Page before writing a story or poem/choosing your extract.

A very important difference: the word limit is up to 600 words just for this kick off event! We'll be back to 400 for future challenges.

Talking of future challenges, Donna is organising a special treat for our second prompt this month, called Appreciating the Zealotry. Basically Donna is offering you a break. On Friday May 18, instead of crafting a story/poem, Donna is asking you to post your favorite blog post written during the A-Z Challenge or anytime during April if you didn't participate in the challenge. Post onto your blog and link in the usual way at the RFW linky list. We'll post the full deets later...

But for now, let's away into our first challenge! The linky will go up on Thursday, EST as usual...